Ambition - an essential subject

Lord Krishna and Balarāma appeared on this earth to lessen the burden of military strength created by the ambitious kṣatriya kings. This is the way of materialistic life. Not being satisfied with simple living and high thinking, people ambitiously create extra demands. These illegal desires are checked by the laws of nature, or the laws of God, which appear as famine, war, pestilence and similar catastrophes. Those who are ambitious to derive material benefit from devotional service are not pure devotees, but because they are engaged in devotional service, they are considered fortunate. The real goal of devotional service is love of Godhead, and although a person may desire material benefits from Krishna, the Lord, being all-powerful, considers the person's position and gradually liberates him from a materially ambitious life and makes him more and more attached to serving His lotus feet.

Srila Prabhupada's books, lectures, conversations and letters offer a comprehensive presentation of this essential subject as seen in the Vaniquotes Ambition category. An introduction from his books is given below in the following 8 quotes.

Quotes from Srila Prabhupada's books


vanipedia.org 		The prime inclination of the materialistic mind is to lord it over the material world, and all the siddhis mentioned above are features of domination over the world. The devotees of the Lord are not ambitious to dominate a false and temporary phenomenon. On the contrary, a devotee wants to be dominated by the supreme predominator, the Lord. A desire to serve the Lord, the supreme predominator, is spiritual or transcendental, and one has to attain this purification of the mind and the senses to get admission into the spiritual kingdom. (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 2.2.22)



vanipedia.org 		Those who try the impossible are irrational and overambitious. Everyone has to proceed gradually, placing each step securely before taking the next one. In this way one will ultimately reach the goal. (Renunciation Through Wisdom, Chapter 3.4)



vanipedia.org 		The ambitious conditioned soul wants to be very happy in this material world with his family, but he is compared to a traveler in the forest who desires to climb a hill full of thorns and small stones. (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 5.13.8)



vanipedia.org 		When the senses are engaged in devotional service to Hṛṣīkeśa, then the senses are completely satisfied. Without this superior knowledge of sense gratification, one may try to satisfy his material senses, but happiness will never be possible. One may increase his ambition for sense gratification and even achieve what he desires for the gratification of his senses, but because this is on the material platform, he will never achieve satisfaction and contentment. (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 8.19.24)



vanipedia.org 		So many nationalists, economists and other ambitious persons have tried for happiness, individually or collectively, but history proves that they have all been frustrated. (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.7.41)



vanipedia.org 		A devotee should not be very enthusiastic about attaining any material goal. He should not be like persons who engage in fruitive activities, who work very hard day and night to attain material rewards. All such persons have some ambition—to become a very big businessman, to become a great industrialist, to become a great poet or philosopher. But they do not know that even if their ambition is fulfilled, the result is temporary. As soon as the body is finished, all material achievements are also finished. (Nārada-bhakti-sūtra, Chapter 5)



vanipedia.org 		Although karmīs and bhaktas may work in the same place, at the same time, with the same energy and with the same ambition, they achieve different results. The karmīs transmigrate through different bodies in the cycle of birth and death, sometimes going upward and sometimes downward, thus suffering the results of their actions in the karma-cakra, the cycle of birth and death. The devotees, however, because of fully surrendering at the lotus feet of the Lord, are never baffled in their attempts. (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 8.9.28)



vanipedia.org 		At the present moment the so-called executive heads are more or less selected from materially ambitious persons who simply look after their own personal interests; they have no knowledge of the śāstras. In other words, the executive heads are fools and rascals in the strict sense of the terms, and the people in general are śūdras. This combination of fools and rascals and śūdras cannot bring about peace and prosperity in this world. (Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 4.20.15)


Ambition - explore more within this category.

Vanipedia has now over 903 introductory articles compiled from Srila Prabhupada's books under the series titled Essential Subjects. All these articles can be seen in the Table of Content on the right side of this article and also here in this Umbrella Category. Browse through them to relish the breadth and depth of Srila Prabhupada's teachings - There is a subject for everyone.


   
 

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